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3232The US IS Now Superfluous To The Future Of The Korean Peninsula Part IIhttps://www.balloon-juice.com/2018/05/24/the-us-is-now-superfluous-to-the-future-of-the-korean-peninsula-part-ii/
https://www.balloon-juice.com/2018/05/24/the-us-is-now-superfluous-to-the-future-of-the-korean-peninsula-part-ii/#commentsThu, 24 May 2018 16:07:18 +0000https://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=237008On May 1st I wrote:

I also think that aside from the meeting between Kim and the President, the US is now superfluous to the reality on the ground. And that Kim is manipulating the President into a diplomatic and strategic trap where Kim and the DPRK looks like the good guys here and the President, and by extension the US, look unreasonable and become the bad guys. This would also make Xi and the PRC, as well as Putin – another Kim patron – very, very happy.

Part of the problem is I don’t think the President or anyone on his team really seem to understand where President Moon is coming from. Moon is from the center-left/left of center party in the ROK that seeks an opening with the DPRK. His parents were also refugees from the DPRK to the ROK, so reaching a rapprochement that allows for families to be reunited is very important for him.

Moon clearly wants to reach a new normal on the Korean Peninsula. Kim, in the DPRK, wants what he’s always wanted:

the removal of the US, specifically of the US military, from the peninsula

the reunification of the peninsula

under Kim family control

preservation of the Kim family regime

What Kim is talking about is not what the President or anyone on his team is talking about when they talk about denuclearization. Before US-DPRK negotiations have ever begun we have a fundamental mismatch of what the key term means. This will make negotiating more difficult if there is no agreement to what the key terms mean and key issues actually are. There is little doubt that President Moon knows exactly what Kim means when he talks about denuclearization. Moreover, President Moon is no doubt very clear about the President not wanting to keep US military personnel in the ROK. The President, per his longstanding belief dating back to 1987, sees this as a waste of money and another example of America’s allies and partners taking advantage of it and playing the US for suckers.

… the South Koreans know exactly where they stand with the President. So it should not be surprising that President Moon is going to pursue the ROK’s interests and get the best deal he can get with Kim if there is a deal to be had regardless of what happens between the DPRK and the US. Moon has essentially recognized that there are two separate, though somewhat related, diplomatic tracks going on. The first he controls and is bilaterally between the ROK and the DPRK. The second involves the US, is sort of multilateral and at the same time sort of bilateral, and may or may not be anything more than a show.

From the perspective of the DPRK’s Kim, he’s already gotten what he wants from the US: agreement to the meeting. This elevates Kim and the DPRK from pariah status to worthy of direct negotiations with the US and the President. While the President and his team don’t seem to realize this, or if they do, acknowledge it publicly, this is a key concession from the US to the DPRK. And it was provided without Kim having to do much of anything.

All of this is even more evident today with the President withdrawing from the scheduled June summit in Singapore. President Moon as well as the members of his government, have now seen that even if they try to work within the Trump Doctrine and treat the President fairly in order avoid the “or else”, they’re still likely to get the “or else”. The South Koreans gave the President a number of largely symbolic* concessions in the renegotiated trade agreement in order to pursue the “treat fairly” track of the Trump Doctrine. Instead they’ve gotten the “or else” response. The President has repeatedly stated that he wants to pull all US forces out of the ROK because the South Koreans are ripping us off in terms of trade, he cancelled the more controversial for the DPRK portion of the air warfare exercise with the ROK to keep Kim locked into the summit he just cancelled, and he’s now cancelled the summit because the North Koreans replied as in a very predictable way to the Vice President’s and the National Security Advisor’s threatening invocation of how the US dealt with Muamar Qadafi after he gave up his limited nuclear weapons capability.

At this point Moon has tried the “treat fairly” track of the Trump Doctrine and gotten little positive result. In fact he’s largely gotten the “or else” response. Especially as it has been reported that Moon was “blindsided” by this morning’s announcement.

South Korea’s government seemed blindsided by Trump’s announcement.

“We are attempting to make sense of what, precisely, President Trump means,” said government spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom.

Shortly before midnight in Seoul, South Korea’s president called an emergency meeting to discuss Trump’s decision, summoning his chief of staff, national security adviser, foreign minister, unification minister and intelligence chief to the presidential Blue House.

As a result he has every incentive to simply continue to bilaterally negotiate with Kim to achieve Moon’s and Moon’s government’s understanding of the ROK’s national interest. By impulsively deciding to grant Kim a summit based and now impulsively pulling out of that summit because of some tough talk, the President seems to think that his maximum pressure campaign got him the opportunity for the summit and can now simply be reimposed and once again achieve positive goals. The problem, of course, is there is no evidence that the President’s maximum pressure approach actually contributed to or set the conditions for Kim to pursue a bilateral US-DPRK summit, which is something Kim, his father, and his grandfather have been trying to achieve for decades.

Here’s a link to the live feed of the President’s forthcoming remarks on his withdrawing from the summit with Kim.

Kim has largely already gotten what he wanted. He got the President to agree to meet with him. He got two photo ops with Secretary of State Pompeo. He got the President to call him an honorable man. And he got the President to call this off, making the US look like the mercurial, erratic, and unreliable obstacle to peace. It is important to remember that there are a whole bunch of foreign reporters in the DPRK right now because they were there to observe and report on the destruction of the DPRK nuclear test facility. If we’re very lucky, Kim won’t decide that he too can play the “or else” game as well and scarf these folks up as hostages to use as bargaining chips.

Updated at 12:20 PM EDT

The President has opened his remarks by threatening the DPRK with a military response. For whatever reason, between the President’s positive remarks about the summit in his pre recorded interview with Fox and Friends this AM, his issuing the withdrawal letter, and this press statement, he’s decided to go straight to belligerent. And despite what he’s saying in terms of greatly enhancing our military, the US does not currently have the operational capacity to fight a war on the Korean peninsula. Or anywhere else for that matter.

Updated at 12:35 PM EDT:

Not only did the President not give Moon a heads up, he also decided to blindside the DPRK too!

NK officials didn't give any official comment, but immediately got up and left, right after @willripleyCNN read them the letter from POTUS canceling the summit. This happened on the train following dismantling of nuclear test site.

* The trade concessions that the ROK made are largely symbolic as they apply to types of goods that the US does not currently sell in the ROK and has no intention of doing so for the foreseeable future.

]]>https://www.balloon-juice.com/2018/05/24/the-us-is-now-superfluous-to-the-future-of-the-korean-peninsula-part-ii/feed/87Bottom feeders, underwritten plans and qualityhttps://www.balloon-juice.com/2018/05/24/bottom-feeders-underwritten-plans-and-quality/
https://www.balloon-juice.com/2018/05/24/bottom-feeders-underwritten-plans-and-quality/#commentsThu, 24 May 2018 14:30:12 +0000https://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=237004This is a reminder, not all underwritten plans are junk plans.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO)’s working definition of health insurance is a policy that provides reasonably protection against catastrophic medical expenses of most varieties. They’ll exclude plans with very low lifetime limits for what the insurer pays, or plans that pay a few hundred dollars per day of hospitalization or plans that only cover a particular disease class. But they will count plans that have some significant coverage of hospitalization and professional services with some type of exposure limitation.

GRIP is a medically underwritten plan that has grandmother (If you like, you can keep it) status. It is a good plan if you qualified for it. The network is the equivilent of the UPMC Premium network …The Gold equivalent (EPO $1000) for a perfectly healthy 40 year old male is $120 less per month than the Exchange Gold in zip code 15219….Fundamentally, GRIP, if one could pass the underwriting without any denials or upcharges is good insurance with a broad network and good pricing because the insured cohort is fairly unlikely to actually incur large claims.

Underwritten plans can be solid insurance.

The concern is that the bottom feeders will proliferate as they can offer a $30 a month plan with a $30,000 deductible, $100,000 out of pocket maximum and massive clinical exclusions. And the networks will be rented so that there is not even a significant benefit of in-network price discounts compared to cash-pay for individuals who incur some claims that are less than the deductible.

We just need to be clear in our thinking and our language when we talk about underwritten plans. Some of them are good. Some of them are okay in certain circumstances (young and male without behavioral health issues is the dominant circumstance with upside here) and some are pure junk. These distinctions need to be made going forward.

]]>https://www.balloon-juice.com/2018/05/24/bottom-feeders-underwritten-plans-and-quality/feed/8Summit Offhttps://www.balloon-juice.com/2018/05/24/summit-off/
https://www.balloon-juice.com/2018/05/24/summit-off/#commentsThu, 24 May 2018 13:59:27 +0000https://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=236997To the surprise of no one:

Ironically, Trump is probably most pissed off about the North Korean foreign minister calling Pence a “dummy,” which is perfectly true. Let’s just hope the orange fart cloud focuses on golf or staring at someone’s boobs instead of avenging his toady.

Oh well. At least we have a coin immortalizing two of the most absurd hairdos to ever adorn the noggins of a pair of nuclear-armed, narcissistic rage-bots.

Mueller's office repeatedly describes his investigation as a criminal probe; it does not refer to it as a counterintelligence investigation (which was what former director Comey described in his public testimony).

This weekday feature is for Juicers who are are on the road, traveling, or just want to share a little bit of their world via stories and pictures. So many of us rise each morning, eager for something beautiful, inspiring, amazing, subtle, of note, and our community delivers – a view into their world, whether they’re far away or close to home – pictures with a story, with context, with meaning, sometimes just beauty. By concentrating travel updates and tips here, it’s easier for all of us to keep up or find them later.

So please, speak up and share some of your adventures and travel news here, and submit your pictures using our speedy, secure form. You can submit up to 7 pictures at a time, with an overall description and one for each picture.

You can, of course, send an email with pictures if the form gives you trouble, or if you are trying to submit something special, like a zipped archive or a movie. If your pictures are already hosted online, then please email the links with your descriptions.

For each picture, it’s best to provide your commenter screenname, description, where it was taken, and date. It’s tough to keep everyone’s email address and screenname straight, so don’t assume that I remember it “from last time”. More and more, the first photo before the fold will be from a commenter, so making it easy to locate the screenname when I’ve found a compelling photo is crucial.

Have a wonderful day, and enjoy the pictures!

The form is wonky, but I hope to get that solved later this week. Thanks for your patience.

My apologies, no pictures today. I’ll be better-positioned tomorrow -have a great morning!

Today, pictures from valued commenter <>.

Thank you so much, <>, do send us more when you can.

Travel safely everybody, and do share some stories in the comments, even if you’re joining the conversation late. Many folks confide that they go back and read old threads, one reason these are available on the Quick Links menu.

Today’s decision by the @NFL is a win for the fans, a win for @POTUS, and a win for America. Americans can once again come together around what unites us – our flag, our military, and our National Anthem. Thank you NFL. #ProudToStandpic.twitter.com/zNwxhYGNaN

If I were Trump I'd be nervous about Pence playing more and more openly as a MAGA chud instead of his usual role as the team's wire-hanger selling rapture prepper. Like he's getting ready to inherit the fanbase. https://t.co/MRyt4u2uuS

I’ve written before about “extinction bursts”, where an organism that stops getting the expected response to an action will redouble its efforts in attempt to get its reward. The NFL seems to be in the middle of such an extinction burst — its TV revenues are dropping, and as a result, they’ve just doubled down on their worst authoritarian impulses. And Mike Pence is the GOP Extinction Burst made flesh, applauding the jingoism for the hardcore Deplorables…

Political correctness is ruining free speech in America. To fight it, we insist that professional athletes participate in nationalist rituals in the proscribed fashion without expressing any views, to avoid offense. To do otherwise would endorse snowflakes and their safe spaces.

And this is what people are taking offense to: They believe the country HAS lived up to its ideals and they are offended that someone else says otherwise. It's not about a misconception that someone is against the anthem.

]]>https://www.balloon-juice.com/2018/05/24/late-night-horrorshow-open-thread-kicking-around-the-sportsball-players/feed/33I’m Setting The Blog To Def-Blog 2: The President Will Be OnFox & Friendshttps://www.balloon-juice.com/2018/05/24/im-setting-the-blog-to-def-blog-2-the-president-will-be-on-fox-and-friends/
https://www.balloon-juice.com/2018/05/24/im-setting-the-blog-to-def-blog-2-the-president-will-be-on-fox-and-friends/#commentsThu, 24 May 2018 04:41:41 +0000https://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=236978

Will be interviewed on @foxandfriends tomorrow morning at 6:00 A.M. Enjoy!

Please stay at your stations, off the comms, and await official updates regarding the President’s calling in to Fox’s A Blonde with Two Boobs morning show and it’s aftermath!

Open thread.

]]>https://www.balloon-juice.com/2018/05/24/im-setting-the-blog-to-def-blog-2-the-president-will-be-on-fox-and-friends/feed/61Weekly Chemo and Menagerie Updatehttps://www.balloon-juice.com/2018/05/23/weekly-chemo-and-menagerie-update/
https://www.balloon-juice.com/2018/05/23/weekly-chemo-and-menagerie-update/#commentsThu, 24 May 2018 01:18:44 +0000https://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=236966Lily had her fifth chemo treatment today, and while we were there I saw the most curious looking dog:

From some angles, it looks like he has NO legs whatsoever, but I thought he looked kinda like a Jawa Landcrawler. He shuffled when he walked.

At any rate, the only note from my doctor this week was “Lily continues to be amazing.” Which is true! All her bloodwork was fine, her platelet count dropped, and everything seems to be ok, so we are just gonna keep on keeping on. She got showered with attention by all the nurses and vet techs, and got a pretty new bow:

After we walked out of the hospital I tried to get her to go on the grass and potty, but she headed straight toward the car and was ready to get on the road.

Got home, and the peeps are doing well:

And just because I love you, here are pictures of Rosie and Lardass. Rosie is too stiff (like all JRT’s) to curl up, so she just makes the bed work:

And Steve just sleeps wherever the hell he wants:

Remember, that recliner is a chair and a half oversized job.

I have no idea what happened in politics today and plan to keep it that way until tomorrow.

]]>https://www.balloon-juice.com/2018/05/23/weekly-chemo-and-menagerie-update/feed/139North Korea Replieshttps://www.balloon-juice.com/2018/05/23/north-korea-replies/
https://www.balloon-juice.com/2018/05/23/north-korea-replies/#commentsThu, 24 May 2018 00:32:48 +0000https://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=236963I said before the weekend, I think in a comment, that I expected North Korea to respond to Trump’s threat of nuclear war over the weekend. I was off by a few days.

Another all-tweet post, sorry. There should be a more readable form of the statement in a bit.

KCNA: "Choe Son Hui, vice-minister of Foreign Affairs of the DPRK, issued the following press statement on Thursday: At an interview with Fox News on May 21, the U.S. Vice-President Pence has made unbridled and impudent remarks that north Korea might end like Libya…and so on."

KCNA: "If he is vice-president of 'single superpower' as is in name, it will be proper for him to know even a little bit about the current state of global affairs and to sense to a certain degree the trends in dialogue and the climate of detente."

KCNA: "We could surmise more than enough what a political dummy he is as he is trying to compare the DPRK, a nuclear weapon state, to Libya that had simply installed a few items of equipment and fiddled around with them."

KCNA: "In view of the remarks of the U.S. high-ranking politicians who have not yet woken up to this stark reality and compare the DPRK to Libya that met a tragic fate, I come to think that they know too little about us."

KCNA: "It is the U.S. who has asked for dialogue, but now it is misleading the public opinion as if we have invited them to sit with us. I only wonder what is the ulterior motive behind its move and what is it the U.S. has calculated to gain from that."

KCNA: "We will neither beg the U.S. for dialogue nor take the trouble to persuade them if they do not want to sit together with us. Whether the U.S. will meet us at a meeting room or encounter us at nuclear-to-nuclear showdown is entirely dependent upon the decision…of the U.S."

Here's the transcript of the Fox News interview that Mike Pence gave earlier this week that the N. Koreans were displeased by. "This will only end like the Libya Model ended if Kim Jong-un doesn't make a deal."https://t.co/dL9kbN8dQu

]]>https://www.balloon-juice.com/2018/05/23/trump-crime-cartel-open-thread-gimme/feed/178Going Full Trump: Walker Stapletonhttps://www.balloon-juice.com/2018/05/23/going-full-trump-walker-stapleton/
https://www.balloon-juice.com/2018/05/23/going-full-trump-walker-stapleton/#commentsWed, 23 May 2018 20:45:30 +0000https://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=236942Colorado primaries are coming up. We’re gonna need a new governor. The Democratic governor candidates of course are running against the orange-in-chief, but also touting the need for single-payer health care, saving our beloved open spaces and education, among other things. In honesty, the top three Dems are solid candidates and I’d be happy for any of them. I am supporting Congressman Jared Polis in the primaries.

On the Republican side – I have’t paid much attention to it, except the entire process for getting petitions signed turned bloody quickly. Fraud was discovered and good ole racist Tom Tancredo dropped out early. And one candidate is Romney’s nephew and has no political experience at all. But, hey, governor looks like a good place to start, right?

The candidate that has suddenly stood out to me is State Treasurer Walker Stapleton. He has some pretty deep skeletons in his closet: Hit and Run Charges and questions on how he’s run the the treasury.

But this is what caught my eye, he’s the first Republican candidate to go full Trump:

Be interesting to see how this plays out in the primaries. I live and play in a fairly blue section of the state, so I’m not a good judge on how Trump is seen here overall. But one Republican is running on a pro-business, anti-California platform and the other two haven’t made enough noise for me to notice yet, it remains to be see if they’ll swing full-trump, too. The primary is June 26, should be interesting.

When our daughter was zero to one year and eleven months old, my husband and I deluded ourselves into thinking we had a rare infant/toddler who consistently behaved in public. We pitied other parents we saw in restaurants, grocery stores, etc., when their little monsters had embarrassing public meltdowns. When that happened, my husband and I exchanged knowing glances and smiled smug little smiles.

I remember the exact moment we were disabused of our delusion. We were in a family pizza-spaghetti joint with our daughter, who had recently turned two. She was in a high chair, and instead of quietly munching the Captain’s Wafer crackers I offered to placate her until the food arrived, she pounded them into dust on the tray and distributed the crumbs in a six-foot radius of our table. She issued piercing shrieks and repeatedly threw her sippy cup.

We hastily finished our meals and departed, leaving an enormous tip and resigning ourselves to Chuck E. Cheese for the next few years. The one near us sold beer. I bet they sell A LOT of fucking beer.

Anyhoo, I experienced a similar phenomenon with the pup today. I’ve supervised Badger’s training from the mudroom/home office, gating the two of us off so poor old Daisy can get some peace and quiet and I can closely observe the little critter to hasten the house-training project. He’s doing well on that front!

But my job requires occasional phone conferences too. In the three weeks we’ve had Badger, he’s been an absolute ANGEL during these calls, sleeping sweetly at my feet. That lulled me into thinking he was just a great phone conference puppy! Not so, as it turns out.

Thank God for the fucking mute button, because today, Badger was a raging brat during a call. He’s not much of a barker, but he was running in circles growling and barking. He tore one of the ears off my piggy slippers:

As I extracted the ear from his mouth, he sank his sharp little teeth into my thumb. I happened to be speaking on the call when that happened, and listeners may have noticed that my voice rose an octave or two, but otherwise, I held it together.

I tried plying the little shit with dog training treats, which had the exact opposite of the intended effect, as any fool could have predicted; it reinforced his bad behavior, so he stood on the floor with his paws on my knee, barking as I handed him treat after treat.

The experience was almost as harrowing as when I had to climb into one of those human Habitrails at Chuck E. Cheese to extract my daughter, who refused to come out because another kid had peed and then disrobed. I’m getting too old for this shit.

As you may have noticed for a moment, an ad was in the wrong place. My fault.

I’m doing a few updates to the site today. One important update will be the newest WordPress release, which has lots of privacy stuff – yay. This is in response to the new privacy laws in Europe.

I’ve not yet wrapped my head around the changes, so there may be some new buttons for things like Privacy Policy or Private Comment or who knows. Point being, if new things show up related to Privacy and they don’t work at first, or even today, drop me a line and I’ll get to work on it as I can.

Ok, I’m going to some updates now and so the site may show “Maintenance Mode” here and there. Just count to 5 and reload the page and you should be good to go. If something goes horribly wrong, it will get resolved ASAP.

]]>https://www.balloon-juice.com/2018/05/23/site-updates-2/feed/63The Trump Administration Negotiateshttps://www.balloon-juice.com/2018/05/23/the-trump-administration-negotiates/
https://www.balloon-juice.com/2018/05/23/the-trump-administration-negotiates/#commentsWed, 23 May 2018 14:41:25 +0000https://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=236913Since before I joined Balloon Juice, since the 2016 campaign, I’ve said that Donald Trump stinks as a negotiator.

Most of us have some experience negotiating. One of my mentors said that every encounter is a negotiation. Some of our valued commenters are lawyers, whose jobs are mostly negotiation. We’ve bought cars or rented apartments. There are some basics that you learn just by living, unless you’ve lived an utterly protected life.

This thread is by an Obama administration official. I know that Twitter threads can be hard to read, but this one has some good links and visuals. And it’s not too long.

1. As someone who was part of diplomatic talks, this story on how Trump team screwed up China negotiations is a textbook case of nearly EVERY SINGLE THING you should NOT do. Bodes badly for North Korea summit.

3. During the talks. Because you failed to prepare have “profanity laced shouting matches” amongst yourselves in front of the Chinese encouraging them to exploit splits in the US team pic.twitter.com/CLc5YlHHy4

5. Also leak China’s concession to the press causing them to have to deny the concessions publicly and forcing the Chinese to & take a harder line. Now you’ve taken away your counterpart’s negotiating space pic.twitter.com/Lb27UB8rtz

7. Top it off with a front page NY Times story where clearly many of the US negotiators disparaged each other to the press. Because I’m sure they’ll now work really well as a team going forward. pic.twitter.com/iQHo7nKe0v

A late additional point. Diplomatic negotiations on tough issues are really really hard. Even without all these basic unforced errors, likelihood of success is often low. With these errors it’s impossible

Fresh faces with compelling life stories prevailed in Democratic primaries across several southern states Tuesday, beating candidates with deeper political pedigrees and more governing experience in several key races…

Voters in Kentucky nominated Amy McGrath, the first Marine woman to fly an F-18 fighter jet, for a key House seat in Lexington over the candidate favored by party leaders, a two-term mayor who ran on a promise to bring “adult supervision” to Washington.

In Texas, Democrats nominated two lesbian candidate with military or law enforcement backgrounds, one Latina and the other Filipina, for key races. And Georgia voters gave former State House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams a shot to become the first black, female governor in the country…

From beloved (okay, indefatigable) commentor Raven:

And this one is especially sweet, she’s an old friend and wasn’t given much of a chance: It’s almost unheard of to beat a sitting judge, but public defender Lisa Lott ousted newly appointed Superior Court Judge Regina Quick, and it wasn’t even that close, 55–45.

Votes cast in the respective primaries has broken down to 55% GOP, 45% Dem. This is a stark improvement from 2014, where it was 65% GOP to 35% DEM. Dems did well around the black-belt of Georgia and made gains in Atlanta suburbs #gagov#GAPrimarypic.twitter.com/8gOd5QUisY

Incredible riff from @POTUS right after imploring gala attendees to support GOP candidates in the midterms: "So your vote in 2018 is every bit as important as your vote in 2016… I don't know if I believe that…. Who the hell wrote that line?"